![After placing second in their respective LDEs at the Capital District contest in early November, freshman Jesus Jaramillo-Gallegos and freshman Wyatt Pickett will compete at the Area XII LDE contest in Georgetown on Nov. 23. Jaramillo-Gallegos is competing in Greenhand Spanish Creed Speaking, while Pickett’s LDE is Greenhand Creed Speaking. “Honestly, [I’m excited for] just traveling around, maybe meeting more people,” Jaramillo-Gallegos said. “And [I’m] nervous about probably just not being able to define my weak areas. I feel like I did decent for my first time ever doing this. I just think it’s fun.”](https://cphswolfpack.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/Navy-and-Yellow-Simple-Group-Project-Presentation-1200x675.png)
![Holding up T-wolves, the tour group poses for a picture in the Chinese classroom. Sophomore Lydia Ou, junior Phu Trung and senior Yushan Pan gave a tour to Taiwanese diplomat Andrea Yang on Nov. 8. “I was so excited when I heard I would get to give the tour because it’s a big deal,” Ou said. “She’s from the US embassy for Taiwan, so she’s really important. I’m so privileged [to get this opportunity] and I’m so excited.” Photo by Skyler King](https://cphswolfpack.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/Main-Taiwan.jpg)
![Sitting at a desk past the rows of books laid out for the Book Fair, senior Kimberley Walters assists people in purchasing books and finding titles. The Book Fair is taking place Dec. 16 through Dec. 20, and is an annual event during which students and faculty have the opportunity to go and purchase books and other trinkets in the library. Kimberley said she encourages all to go to the Book Fair, even if they think they don’t like to read. “If you make reading something that is fun for you and you find the things that you like to read, it will never be a chore,” Walters said. “So [the Book Fair is] a good opportunity to find something that will respark your want to read [like] when you were a child and you went to the book fair and you loved the ‘I survived’ books. Maybe you'll find your ‘I survived’ books of your high school experience, and it'll re-spark that kind of love for reading that may have died out.”](https://cphswolfpack.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/Addie-L-47-1200x800.jpg)
![Smiling at the camera, sophomore Olivia Mahlmeister and seniors Samantha Jameson, Adhit Eswaramoorthi and Justin Khadavi celebrate completing first chamber in the Congress Meet. All four students advanced to the final chamber. “Out of the 20 kids in the final chamber, we had a seventh, ninth, 11th and 13th, and they took the top four to move on to state,” AP US History and Debate teacher Josh Marsh said. “[Even though] we didn't make state this year, all four of them moving on [and] placing is phenomenal.” Photo courtesy of Josh Marsh](https://cphswolfpack.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/2024-Regional-Congress-Team.jpg)
![Standing in front of a small audience, senior Kimberley Walters shares a social criticism poem titled “Pity the Nation” by Lawrence Felinghetti. Every month, sponsored by the poetry club, the library hosts a poetry reading. “I never thought I would be interested in [poetry readings] because I’m not the biggest poetry fan,” Walters said. “I think poetry is a very succinct way to express feelings and get a story across. Whereas lots of books have a span of a whole story, but it’s put in a lot of words. The power of poetry is that you can be so succinct within, and there’s a lot of power within the words that are used.”](https://cphswolfpack.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/KIM-1200x800.jpg)
![Smiling at the camera, Author Ehigbor Okosun, members of Page Turners, and other students reflect on the author's visit. “I thought the visit was great,” Senior Amia De Leon said. “It was interesting talking to her and [getting to know] her process and her thoughts and books in general. But I think the reason it went well [was that] people got to ask questions. I'm glad that she said so much in response to the questions and it wasn't just one and done. [The author’s responses] felt very articulate.”](https://cphswolfpack.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/Sebastian-5-1200x800.jpg)
![Holding the Grand Nationals trophies, drum majors Helashi Wijayawardhana, Abigail Pettey and Eddy Kim pose for a photo. The BOA Grand Nationals competition took place in Indianapolis on Nov. 14-17. “My favorite thing was just looking back at the field, and I was like, ‘Oh, crap. I know all of their names, I know who all of them are’,” Wijayawardahana said. “It's just insane to me that I was able to make so many connections. [Being a drum major] taught me how to build relationships with people who I’m not really that similar to, and how to juggle a ton of things all together.”
Photo courtesy of CPHS Band SmugMug](https://cphswolfpack.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/AJC.GrandNatsFinals-169-1200x801.jpg)
![Delicately placing the string to form the shape of a cornucopia, seniors Haley Burton and Avery Nelson create the November arrangement for the Flower of the Month Club. This club is led by Advanced Floral Design Students and provides a monthly arrangement to community members who subscribe to receive them. “I think flower of the month club is a really impactful way to show your loved ones ‘hey I really care about you,’ or even if they’re just for yourself, they’re a little pick-me-up throughout the month that [say] ‘I’m doing ok, and these flowers make my day a little bit brighter,” Nelson said. “I like giving people flowers because people value the flowers more and they value themselves more.”](https://cphswolfpack.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/Ava-Holmes-3-edit.jpg)
![Standing in front of the field at a freshman football game, cheerleader freshman Jacob Gaudreau along with teammate freshman Bella Gibson pose for a photo during halftime of game. “[Cheer has] definitely given me a much more outgoing personality,” Gaudreau said. “I used to be very introverted, so it's definitely made me more extroverted towards people.”](https://cphswolfpack.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/Ingrid-204-1200x800.jpg)
![Holding a wooden pizza toy, senior Taylor Peterson plays with small children in Bucaramanga, Colombia. During the summer, Peterson traveled to Colombia to help build an elementary school that only had two classrooms but five or six grades with one teacher. “We add[ed] two more classrooms,” Peterson said. “It’s kind of hard when you have two or three grades in one classroom and you only have one teacher. It’s very hard to actually get some beneficial learning. [The extra classrooms will give the students] a better quality of education because they’ll actually have a place specific for their learning.” Photo by Taylor Peterson](https://cphswolfpack.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/Taylor-P.png)
![Sucking in a breath of air, freshman Lily Pope competes in the 200 yard individual medley. On Oct. 25, the swim team competed in the AISD Swim Invitational. Overall, the girls team took second place and the boys team came in eleventh. “My favorite stroke is butterfly because I do the best in that stroke,” Pope said. “I feel like [butterfly] can test how [your ability] to convince yourself to keep going. The hardest part of swimming is convincing yourself to stay strong and keep pushing during a hard race [when] everything is tired.”](https://cphswolfpack.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/POPE-1200x804.jpg)
![Swinging with his arm extended, senior Nolan Park hits the ball smoothly over the net and to the opponent’s side. Park is one of four varsity tennis captains and helped the team win district championships. “Winning district champs was a pretty awesome feeling,” Park said. “We had lost to Liberty Hill a couple of weeks before, but when we played them [again], we came out and really took care of business. We took them out and it was just a really awesome night.”](https://cphswolfpack.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/Kassidy-419.jpg)
He sits at his desk, focused and locked in as he finalizes his twenty-pager. He taps on his keyboard as he thinks about the proposal that he is writing up and the hard work that he has put in. He further thinks about the hours that he’s putting in for the end goal: bettering his future. He continues to type.
Junior Adhit Eswaramoorthi dives into the world of business through his extracurricular activities such as DECA, Robotics, and speech and debate to prepare him for his upcoming future in finance. In his first year in these clubs, he became the head of business for the robotics team, advanced to internationals for DECA, joined the extemporaneous speaking event on the varsity speech and debate team and got elected vice president of the 2025 Senior Class.
“I am doing something called Franchise Business Plans for DECA,” Eswaramoorthi said. “It’s where you submit a twenty-page proposal to buy into a franchise, and we chose Menchies Frozen Yogurt. We had to meet with the owner of Menchies and submit a proposal and present it to a judge as if we wanted to buy a part of the company and open up a location.”
Eswaramoorthi will be attending the DECA International Career Development Conference, or ICDC, competition on April 27-30 in California. Him and his other group members, senior Aryan Anarkat and junior Rushil Mehta, are currently finishing their preparations for the contest.
“All of the main preparations are done; all we have to do now is finish our trifold, which displays the research with the finances that we did for Menchie’s,” Eswaramoorthi said. “We already put all our information on there, we [just] had to meet with sources that could give us information about Menchie’s franchise, financial information and how they operate. We have to keep going through practice runs of our presentation or script and obviously for the twenty-page paper we had to do a lot of research and learn the business skills that we need to succeed in a competition like this.”
Not only did he qualify for ICDC for DECA, but Eswaramoorthi also became a 5A State Champion with the robotics team this year. He continued to learn more about the business world by becoming the head of business for the team, where he led the team by helping them earn the Innovation Award, an award given to robots with elegant design and out of box thinking, along with the state championship.
“Main point in anything business-related is being outgoing and stepping out of your comfort zone to connect with other people,” Eswaramoorthi said. “I think being in DECA and talking to different people from different schools allowed me to expand how I view and go about meeting new people, which connects to robotics and the work ethic you have to have. The work ethic you have for DECA helped me with Robotics.”
As Eswaramoorthi expands his horizons of extracurricular activities, he finds it important to focus on three clubs that he would excel in with the set of skills that he has and found the Speech and Debate team to be a good fit. This school year being his first year on the team made it on the Varsity team for the event, Extemporaneous Speaking.
“The past two years I feel like I never really explored my horizons, and I thought instead of scrolling on Tiktok for 5 hours after I come home I can instead utilize my time in so much better ways. Having friends involved with it and being able to interact with other people and socialize and having that plan, makes it so instead of wasting time on video games or social media you can use that time for stuff you enjoy and could help with college or your future.”
As he will soon finish his junior year, he will take on the role as senior class vice president for the next school year. He also prepares for the future beyond high school and his future in business as he hopes to major in finance.
“Through the fields of business I’ve done this year, I’ve realized that I have a big passion for Finance, and want to major in that later. My parents are super supportive and they believe if I am passionate about it anyone can succeed. Learning these skills in DECA, Robotics, and Debate have been instrumental in learning how to be a good business person and learn the business skills, social skills, and interpersonal skills to succeed in the business world.”
